


Cordyceps

by QueenHRK



Category: The Last of Us, The Last of Us: Left Behind - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Bloaters, Cordyceps Fungus, Dead Parents, Death, Ellie and reader like puns, Ellie is immune, Ellie needs to watch her mouth, F/M, Fighting, Flashbacks, I'm Bad At Tagging, Joel is suffering, Runners, Sad, Set a year after the first game ends, Survival, The Last Of Us: Left Behind, The Last of Us - Freeform, clickers, spores, struggling with the past, the struggle is real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-16 15:05:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenHRK/pseuds/QueenHRK
Summary: This was the first lucky break I’ve ever had. After being on the road by myself since my parents died, this place seemed like a small heaven on earth. To tell you the truth I was wary when I spent the last couple of days without seeing any infected what-so-ever I was starting to feel on edge, because infected are every outside of quarantines. My parents never trusted the military zones after the break out, they’d risk sneaking in them for supplies, but they would never stay there for more than an hour. As for me, once my parents’ luck finally ran out and they were infected, I headed south, and skirted far away from any sign of civilization. This house is a tiny miracle. I have been walking south for three years, and if I am reading my map right I should be somewhere deep in Louisiana.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Italicized words are you dreaming! Also In my story Joel was 28 when the the break out started, so in present time he's around 48-49.

The old plantation house had lay abandoned for years. The whole first floor was submerged in a water that was as high as your knees, the outside was covered in ivy, and what once was the ballroom now had an old beautiful willow tree surrounded by large lily pads. On the second floor in the master bedroom an old house plant of angel ivy had outgrown its pot and had taken over the room, in the bathroom next to the room there was a hole in the ceiling where the roof had collapsed and a family of love birds moved into the bathtub. In the nursery there was a whole corner filled with black angel trumpet flowers, while the rest of the room was just sprouting grass and weeds here and there. The final room on that floor was meant to be for a teenager for it had a vanity covered in outdated makeup and pictures that were so faded that no one could make out faces. In this room compared to the rest of the house it was fairly untouched, along the outside wall there was ivy growing in through the window, in the middle of the room the willow tree from the ballroom had broken through the floor, and in the corner of the room next to what used to be a dresser there was a blackberry bush struggling to survive with what little sunlight it got.

            All other places in the house, such as the living room and kitchen, the ceiling had collapsed on them and they were un-enterable. Nothing in this house had been touched for years, possibly even before the break out. There was no Runners, Clickers, or even Bloaters. I heave a heavy sigh. This was the first lucky break I’ve ever had. After being on the road by myself since my parents died, this place seemed like a small heaven on earth. To tell you the truth I was wary when I spent the last couple of days without seeing any infected what-so-ever I was starting to feel on edge, because infected are everywhere outside of quarantines. My parents never trusted the military zones after the break out, they’d risk sneaking in them for supplies, but they would never stay there for more than an hour. As for me, once my parents’ luck finally ran out and they were infected, I headed south, and skirted far away from any sign of civilization. This house is a tiny miracle. I have been walking south for three years, and if I am reading my map right I should be somewhere deep in Louisiana. After double checking every room in the house and grabbing the sparse amount of supplies that were here I headed back upstairs to the room that had the small blackberry bush and decided that that room was going to be my base camp room. I slid my backpack off and set it next to the vanity and then I pulled off my faded red bandanna and walked over to the blackberry bush. Score! There was a few handfuls of ripe berries on the bush! I carefully reach in and started picking each berry I could get to without hurting myself on the sharp thorns that covered the bush. When I had every possible berry I took them back to my pack before heading down to the ballroom, which was the driest room on the first floor, to search for some sticks around the willow tree.

            I smiled as I found an armful of sticks that were dry enough to burn, though it wasn’t enough to last all night, so I went back to my base room and set down the sticks. Then I made my way back to the bathroom were the ceiling had collapsed, surely there had to be some lumber in the rumble that I could burn, right? I search through the rumble and came out with enough wood to last me until lunch tomorrow. As I set the lumber down next to the sticks I smiled and looked at my accomplishment, usually I was only able to scrounge up enough wood for a fire that would barely make it until morning, and here I had enough wood for the night and half of the next day! It then dawned on me, what was I going to light this fire in or on so it doesn’t burn down the entire house? I sighed tiredly and decided to look around the house again, surely there was something here that I could use. When I enter the main bedroom I noticed that there was an old metal bathtub, which was probably and antique when there was people still living here. I carefully made my way over the plants and to the tub. I reached for my knife that was sheathed at my belt and I used it to cut the tub free from the angel ivy. I rolled up the sleeves of my flannel before grabbing onto the handles on the sides of the tub and lifting it up off the floor and carrying it back to my room. There I set the tub in the middle of the room and piled some of my wood into it, before grabbing my match book from my bag and frowning once I saw that there was only five left in it. I lit one and threw it into the tub and blew on the area until it caught fire. Once I had the fire going the sun was finally setting and I set down next to the tub with my blackberries I had picked and my bottle of water.

            I smiled as I ate and took a couple of sips from my water. When I finished I set my bandanna by my bag and I pulled out my journal and a pencil. As I sat by the fire I drew, when I started drawing I didn’t realize who it was going to turn out to be, but as the picture started taking shape, I realized who it was, it was a man from my childhood. I was good friends with his daughter before the breakout, I never had the chance to find out what happened to either of them. Sadly, I haven’t thought about them in years now, so why did I draw him? I sighed again for probably the millionth time that night and set my journal aside, before adding one last piece of wood to the fire. I then curled up next to the fire with my shotgun clutched in my hands in case of emergency and I slowly fell asleep to the sound of the fire crackling.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

           

_I’m waking up, and I look around confused as to what woke me up before I looked outside my window. There’s a two huge fires going on in the city and the radio on my bedside table, it was on because I liked listening to music as I fell asleep, was spouting nonsense about people attacking other people and the huge outages because the power plants in the city exploded. My eyes widen and I ran downstairs to my parents’ room and woke them up telling them what happened and what was going on. Then everything turned into a blur, I was screaming panicking because something bad was happening and I needed to get myself and my parents somewhere safe. Suddenly I was in a different house. This house wasn’t my own, but it might as well had been my second home for I was over there just as much as my own house. I was sitting on the couch and next to me my best friend, Sarah, who was a couple of years younger than me, but that didn’t matter we had known each other since birth and planned on knowing each other until we died. We were laughing while watching some stupid comedy on the TV and throwing popcorn at each other and trying to catch it in our mouths. After a few moments of this Sarah’s father walked in and told us we should be in bed by this time. I looked at him and said, “I’m sorry it’s my fault it was my idea to stay up and wait for you to get home, **Joel**.”_

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I woke up with a start just as the sun was just breaking across the horizon, my eyes were wide as I muttered the word that was laying heavily on my tongue. “Joel……”

My breathing was uneasy and I looked around the room and that’s when I realized I was not alone. I could make out the silhouettes of a man and a teenage girl standing by the doorway. We all stayed still, staring at each other for a couple of minutes before the man spoke up. What he said made my heart stop and my face to pale.

“Y/N?”


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first off I want to thank maskimoo for helping with an idea for this chapter. I have really wanting to get back to this story but I haven't any ideas, it was some really bad writer's block, but I'm back! Hopefully I can start updating this story more often now that I have an idea of where I want it to head, so I hope you enjoy! And again, thank you maskimoo, without you this chapter wouldn't be here and it would have been much longer before the story would have been updated again!

            It really couldn’t be him….could it? You had travelled too far and too long for the chances of running into him to be very likely. Yet, here as you was sitting, after just waking from a dream of him, he stood staring at you, he even said your name. There’s no way this is real, it can’t be. You close your eyes and take a deep breath before looking again to see if he was still there. To your joy, he, along with the girl, were still there. You slowly get up, not making any sudden movements just in case. You walked forward, slowly, ever carefully, when you finally stood in front of him you finally allowed yourself to believe it was actually him.

            He was actually Joel. He hadn’t changed much, if any really. The only things that had really changed were that he now had greys in his hair and his beard was fuller and he looked tired and worn, but he still had a small amount of life in him that you remember from before the outbreak. If you dared to say it you might say that he looked good, though that might just be the fact that you hadn’t seen anybody for quite some time. You willed yourself to look into his homely hazel eyes again. When you met his gaze again, you could stop yourself as the tears started flowing. You had not cried in what seemed to be an eternity, you hadn’t even cried when your parents died, you had mourned, but not cried. You’re not sure what had snapped inside of you, but before you knew it you lurched forward and wrapped your arms around his chest and buried your face in his shoulder. You could feel him tense underneath your hold and it stayed that way for a few minutes and you started to doubt yourself and pull back before you finally felt him wrap his arms around you.

            “It really is you…,” you heard him whisper next to your ear before he leaned his head against yours. You both stood like that for a few minutes before the girl, which you had completely forgotten was there, cleared her throat. In that moment, Joel pulled back, stepping back until you were about two feet apart. You felt a slightly loneliness without him holding you, though, you’re not quite sure why. By now you were thankful that your tears had finally cleared, even though you could still feel their wet tracks on your face. You smile up at Joel, and motioned for him and the girl to sit, as you busied yourself with rebuilding the fire you had had going from the night before.

            “So, are we just gonna ignore the elephant in the room, or are we going to introduce ourselves,” you heard the girl whisper to Joel, to which you heard him huff in reply. As you walked over and sat between Joel and the girl, you could feel her eyes on you, which made you slightly uncomfortable, but you tried to show that it didn’t bother you. You glanced over at Joel and saw he was staring into the fire in what seemed to be deep thought. Then you shifted your gaze to the girl and made eye contact, which she seemed to take as a greenlight.

            “Well if mister grumpy isn’t going to introduce me I’ll do it myself. I’m Ellie,” she said as she stuck out her hand for you to shake, which you accepted. She reminded you of yourself when you were a teenager, though there was something about her defiant, but respectful air that made you believe she was much more mature than met the eye, and that there was more to her than you could notice at first glance.

            “Well Ellie, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Y/N,” you give her smile as you tell her. You all then drop into silence. It’s not really an awkward silence, but it also isn’t a comfortable one either. The silence feels full of unsaid things, things that we want to say, but don’t know how to bring it up to the other. As we sit there, and the longer the silence stretched on, the tenser and heavy the air seems to get. As the silence gets to the point where you find that it feels like it is pushing on your chest and heart, you finally find the courage to speak.

            “Joel, it feels like it has been forever…..20 something years, right,” you look over to him to see him nod his head before you continue, “So much has happened since then, at least I know it has for me,” smiling you keep your eyes on his face, “and knowing you, Joel, I’m sure you’ve had much more excitement.”

Shaking his head, he gave slight huff, before saying, “That is an understatement, and a pretty big one at that.”

“You could say that again,” Ellie grumbled beside him, to which you laughed.

“Well, I look forward to hear all of your stories then. Of course I will tell you mine also, though I get the feeling that they will be much less interesting than both of your stories. Though I think that we should discuss them over a meal. I feel food always makes it easier to tell stories, though I’m afraid I am out if food, but I do have a few traps set up in this area for rabbits and such,” you say as you start to stand, “You both just go ahead and get comfortable. Feel free to look around the house if you haven’t already and I will be back shortly.”

You turn to leave before you feel a hand on your shoulder. Turning back around, you see that it’s Ellie.

“Mind if I come with? I would like to look around the area if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, I actually wouldn’t mind the company,” you reply with a smile.

Sighing Joel stands up, and stretches before saying, “I’ll look around the house then. Just to see if there is anything you could have just looked over Y/N.”

With that they each gathered their own things that they would need for their respective task. They then said their goodbyes, before splitting up after promising to be careful and to look out for the other while checking traps.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t until almost dusk that they all met back into their room. Joel had found more firewood and a few smaller pots that were still usable and not completely rusted and beyond use. When Ellie and Y/N got back to the room he had already boiled a few water bottles worth of water and had started grouping them together against a wall. Beyond the few things he had manage scavenge there wasn’t anything, but useless broken items or things that were of no use to them.

While Joel had little success in finding things that their small group could use, the two girls had found that only one of the traps actually had caught a rabbit, which they had to let go because the poor thing was only skin and bones and was barely able to move. Ellie had wanted to keep it, but Y/N had to decline knowing that they could barely feed themselves, let alone feed a pet. So, Ellie, very reluctantly, let the poor rabbit go. The girls then spent the next few hours wondering around their current home looking for something that was safe to eat. They manage to find a few blackberry bushes like the one in the room and picked the few berries of them that were ripe, though there were not enough for the three of them, so they continued on until Ellie spotted a small duck that was floating on the water that surrounded the south side of the house near the ballroom. Ellie, the amazing shot that she was, was able to get the bird with her bow.

So when Ellie walked through the door to the room and saw Joel she held up the foul that they had already taken the feathers off and gutted outside. She smiled widely and walked over to him with the bird as you came in with the berries, which as she had done the night before, that were piled in her bandanna. As Ellie started telling Joel how their afternoon had gone, and about her amazingly, awesome skills that got them dinner, you sat down after taking the bird from Ellie and smiled while listening to the girl get very into her story she was telling Joel. You started cutting the meat from the bones and throwing them into a pan to be cooked.

When you finished you looked up to see that Ellie was still going on, this time she was talking about something else entirely, and Joel was giving a smile, a very fatherly one, and nodding along in all the right parts of the story, though it was evident he wasn’t actually paying attention. He leaned over and took the pan from you and set it on some embers that were not on fire, but were still hot enough to cook with. He looked back up at you and watched then you for a few moments. There was a look in his eye, it seemed to be a nostalgic look, one that seemed sad and like there was so many things he wanted to say, but could find it in himself to actually say them. Ellie, noticing that no one was actually listening to her, finally stopped talking and watched the two of you.

Joel finally looked away when the meat needed to be flipped so that it didn’t burn, and after that he would look in your direction. The room fell into a thick silence, it wasn’t completely uncomfortable, but it was still tense. As the silence continued Ellie pulled out some sort of comic from her bag and started thumbing through it, from how quietly she was turning the pages you guessed she had had the comic for a while and probably had it memorized. You glanced at Joel from the corner of your eye and saw that he was staring into the pan of food with a distant look in his eyes. You wanted to talk to Joel, you wanted to catch up on lost time like you had promised earlier, but you got the feeling that he was just going to avoid all your questions, so you just sat there quietly, watching the fire and occasionally glancing over at Joel, to which you could feel him doing the same, as you could feel his eyes on you every so often.

It wasn’t until the food was done that anyone said anything, and that was just Ellie asking if she could have some of the blackberries, which you handed to her with a smile. After eating Joel said he’d take first watch, so Ellie and you laid down next to the fire. After laying there for a while unable to sleep and hearing Ellie fall asleep, you sat back up. Joel, noticing the movement looked over, before quickly looking back out the window at the night sky. It hurt seeing him avoid you, having him ignore your existence.    

You stood up and walk over to him, standing behind him you whisper quietly, “Why do you keep doing that?”

He stood there quietly for so long that you started to think he hadn’t heard you when he finally spoke up and whispered back, “There are too many things I need to tell you, too many things I want to know about you that I don’t even know where, or how, to start,” ending with a sigh.

Turning him around, you look into his eyes and reply, “Then let’s start from the beginning Joel, cause I do have some questions of my own.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos if you liked my story. Please comment suggestions for this story or other stories or just plain compliments are appreciated! Please bookmark this story if you want to continue reading it and enjoy the story!
> 
> Stay Nerdy My Friends!!!!
> 
> Signed,  
> Queen Hannah
> 
> P.S. Who all is excited for The Last of Us Part II? I know I am! Let me know your theories about the game and trailers! I'd LOVE to hear them.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a kudos if you liked my story. Please comment suggestions for this story or other stories or just plain compliments are appreciated! Please bookmark this story if you want to continue reading it and enjoy the story!
> 
> Stay Nerdy My Friends!!!!
> 
> Signed,  
> Queen Hannah


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